Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Lifestyle

We all live lifestyles. If we have a problem, food, smoke, drugs, gambling, etc, it is easy to say it is is lifestyle choice. It is. But that statement is of no value in changing the impact of the problem. We have no choice with respect to the problem, we are just unable to make that change, and likely we and you do not know why.

We all know the solution to obesity is to quit overeating. That is obvious. It is the doing that is not easy. We have been trained to eat, have a compulsion to eat, a natural over-driven desire to eat. We are not normal people. We need to identify and change what ever the things are that are driving us to eat. There is the problem.

All those who say stop eating, change your lifestyle, are just missing the problem and a ignorant of the real problem. Many people are driven by high (excess) insulin to eat, but not all. Excess cortisol also causes the same problem. Excess adrenalin similar issue. Some have physical issues, psychological issues, philosophical issues, environmental issues, social issues, or the like. So what do we need to change?

The only solution is to examine one issue at a time until we find what fixes the problem, and then make the lifestyle change. Without knowing what the problem is, each lifestyle change only adds more failure to the problem.

The first step in our recovery may be to accept who we are and our limitations, not try to change ourselves to something we are not. We may need to stop listening to others and become a hermit. Now there is a life style change.

But what do I know? 

Friday, January 15, 2016

Exobese

Sharma post reminded me of a story..
http://www.drsharma.ca/if-oprah-cant-why-do-you-think-you-can 

why do they with great unanimity recommend vices to us?

The devil was chatting to a alcoholic. You can go to heaven today, or you can party tonight and go to heaven tomorrow. The alcoholic, of course, partied. The next day, the devil gave the alcoholic the same choice again....

So the diet should start now, not tomorrow. It should be only a maximum of three meals each day. To do more creates a devil made me do it attitude. Society says it is OK to eat more often, and what has that done for us? The obesity epidemic.

It is crucial that we have a urgency to do it, and a eager want to do it.  Combine that with low impulse control, and the devil made me do it, and the problem is worse.

Then there is that feeling of deprivation that some people report at not being to eat chocolate or some other item. That means that they never made the decision to give up chocolate or some other item. It is this unclear decision that causes deprivation feeling. To be successful on any diet one must make a decision to give up, for ever, some foods like chocolate, sugar, grains, dairy products. If one does not, the weight will come back.

It is like eating wonderful tasting dose dependent poisons. You get away eating small portions of the poison, and even occasional more, but you never feel good. But you like the taste, and the way it goes down, the early effect, but not the long term effects... Food addiction is real.

So go have a donut and start your diet tomorrow is bull, start your diet now, and good luck.

But that is not what the government diet wise program says. Oh well, what do I know?

Friday, January 8, 2016

Self Evaluation... to understand the cause of overeating.

The purpose of self evaluation is to understand the causes of overeating with the idea of removing the causes. As I have said before, there about six groups of causes; food knowledge, physical drives, environment, social drives, maladaptive eating behaviors, and food addictions. Five of the six can only be addressed by doing something that is not natural for us to do, that is not eat when the craving, desire, natural urge arises. We need to do this consistently long term. It is no wonder that most of us fail long term.

The first we need to give up are the foods that cause a craving for more, those that digest into opioid peptides, and drive food addiction. Dairy products and grains are the first to need to go. Food addiction is real for some of us.

Now we find that habit does not have a cause, we do it because we were trained to do it. We simply need to retrain ourselves or of that habit, if our problem is habit.

   

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

What is Canada's most pressing problem?

There are many possibilities. Over-population, The economy, religious differences, ethnically based problems (native v. population), unemployment, poor education, poor truth testing of the young, the disconnect between the governments and the people after election, ... terrorism... the list continues.

I think that it is none of the above, but rather the approach of unsustainable government spending producing a collapse of public support for social spending, big infrastructure, and the like high flying spending.

South of Edmonton there is a new 250 million interchange for a road that does not yet have much traffic on it. What was needed was three overpasses, and a some on and off ramps, perhaps 50 million, not as nice but functional for as much traffic. The new overpass is really nice, and in 20 or 30 years may have considerable traffic, but it is far more than will be needed given the oil price.

We see the City of Edmonton executive ignoring an engineering study and then directing the engineers to change the location of LRT (light rail transit), which creates a automobile nightmare in a portion of Edmonton.

I was forced to go into down town one day, and caught the LRT. On the way back, the signaling was working incorrectly, so I caught the wrong train back. I was treated to a 40 minute tour of the City. I had not realized how many tent encampments there were in Edmonton. Oh well. There was a story in the news the other day that 63% are one paycheck away from the streets. Lest we forget the 105000 homeless where 2800 are vets, and 4.5% of the population, natives, that want new houses.

We have now a federal government that wants to fix all the problems by spending. New water treatment for all the native communities, and then they will need sewer treatment, roads, housing, etc where there is no work save that which the government provides. There are no trade people on the reserves, all the trades work must come from outside. All construction requires 24/7 security, as does the equipment. There are no hotels, so camps must be set up for construction personnel. Everything must come in and then go back out. The cost doubles at least. Then there is truth and reconciliation recommendations.

The provincial government wants to shut down cheap coal power in favor of twice as expensive natural gas. It is good for the economy Notley says. It is not good for the home owner, any businesses except the electricity business. They are guaranteed profits. Oil Sands are being encouraged; these produce more Co2 per gig-joule that coal, but oh well.

All this leads me to think that one of the problem which will bring down our civilization is likely to be over taxation ... reckless spending of government, but what do I know? 

   

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

New Year, New Direction

It is time for a change. What will that change be? I do not know, but I know that it is time for a change.

I miss some aspects of working, (retired) but not the work. The social aspect, but I do not miss some of those people. Archery is OK, as are some of the people, but others are idiots, children, children in adult bodies, and noisy teens, and a few humans sprinkled in. I must accept all; that is trying some days. At other times the range is empty, except for me. But twice each week for an hour or so is enough.

In the Smart Recovery Handbook, there is a Life Balance Exercise. That is essentially divide your life up into a number of small portions and look at each portion separately. An inventory of self actions, likes, dislikes, limitations, and the like. Some of us suffer from short memory and uninterested is some portions. This shows up elsewhere under a variety of names like "circle of life".  A short look and I realized these are all different, confused, and incomplete.

I suggest that there are a number of categories and sub-categories, that vary over time. Here is a start of the mains:

  • Relationships
  • Environmental
  • Physical health
  • Mental Health
  • Finance 
  • Purpose 
To these we need to add some processes like: education, study, working on, learning about, social activities, sports, time management, decision making, handling of the opportunity costs of decisions, etc.

Relationships: can be broken down into: family, parents, children, wife, spouse, friends,  friend A, B, C.... , coworkers A, B, C .... , colleagues, critics, mentors for A, B, C etc.

Environment: is a potentially big group, and may include property, place, time, stuff, things, as well as environment per say.

Physical health: would include sleep, exercise, nutrition, food plan, diet, our outlook on physical risk, activities, recreation and leisure, artistic endeavors, and the like.

Mental health: would include spirituality, our belief system, desires, aversions, stress handling, or stress avoidance, stress detachment, examination and cleaning of our belief system, recreation and leisure, artistic endeavors again, etc.

Finance: career, work, advancement education, accumulation of wealth, retirement...

Purpose: Motivation, direction, forward looking, Positive Psychology, Stoicism, Non-theistic or evolutionist, truth seeking, nature accepting, service, volunteerism, politics, religion, faith, peace seeking, what ever makes us tic...etc.

And then there is the difficulty of doing it all. What do we do with aunts or friends that are insistent food pushers, and expect us to sit there in front of food? And all the time we know we cannot eat, yet the sight of food primes us to eat?  

Now all I need to do is to go do it. But then, what do I know?